Family resilience from the patients’ perspective and its influencing factors among middle-aged and elderly patients with oral cancer: a cross-sectional study

The aim of this study is to explore middle-aged and elderly oral cancer patients’ perceptions of family resilience and to assess the associations among social support, psychological resilience, caregiver burden, and family resilience. A total of 249 patients with oral cancer participated and were investigated using the shortened Chinese version of the Family Resilience Assessment Scale (FRAS-C), the Social Support Rating Scale (SSRS), the 10-item Chinese version of the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC-10) and the Chinese version of the Zarit Caregiver Burden Interview (CZBI). Descriptive, univariate, Pearson correlation analysis, and multiple linear regression analysis were performed. Associations of a positive nature were found linking family resilience to social support ( r = 0.536) and psychological resilience ( r = 0.482), while caregiver burden ( r = -0.442) showed an inverse relationship. Regression analysis indicated that family per capita monthly income, self-paying the medical expense, surgery combined with radiotherapy, surgery combined with chemotherapy, social support, psychological resilience and caregiver burden were significantly associated with oral cancer’s family resilience. There remains considerable room for improvement in family resilience among middle-aged and elderly oral cancer patients. The significant associations between social support, psychological resilience, caregiver burden, and family resilience suggest that social assistance, psychological counseling, and caregiver support may have potential value in enhancing family resilience. Future studies could conduct intervention research that treats patients and caregivers as a unified unit to explore the potential effects on both family and individual resilience.